GHOST OF DRAGSTRIP HOLLOW 1959

As a youngster, it seemed as though I became interested in movies about grown-ups at precisely the time Hollywood became fixated on making movies about youngsters. In 1967 when I was about 10-years old, Hollywood, having opened its eyes to the newfound autonomy and boxoffice clout of teenagers and the college crowd, set about aggressively courting the youth market. Then still an industry run by old men who were, at best, only superficially aware of what the youth market even wanted, Hollywood nevertheless flooded movie theaters with all manner of what was presumed to be youth-themed product. A significant number of these films being devoted to hippies and social rebellion.

My personal apathy towards movies about young people and kids my own age wasn't born of any specific dislike for my peers so much as it was reflective of how badly at the time I wanted to be an adult. I was still at an age where I went to movies for escapism, and, what with having three teenage sisters lording over me at home 24/7, the last thing I wanted to do in my away time was to spend hours in a dark theater looking at more teenagers...or worse, adults pretending to be teenagers. It didn't help, either, that I grew up in the vicinity of San Francisco’s Haight/Ashbury district during the peak of its Summer of Love popularity; the proximity and ubiquity of so many real-life hippies sufficiently killing any mystery or allure they might have otherwise held for me on the big screen.

The dry rivers of Los Angeles popularized the postwar craze of hot rod drag racing.
The LA River was used for drag racing scenes in numerous films, among them: Girls Town (1959) and Grease (1978)

No, I wasn't interested in the "happening" younger generation movies of the day like Woodstock, Alice’s Restaurant, or Zabriskie Point. The movies I longed to see were those I thought would offer a glimpse into what my overactive and melodramatic imagination fancied the world of grown-ups to be like: Two for the Road, Hotel, Valley of the Dolls, Reflections in a Golden Eye.  But, alas, I was at that awkward age: a cinephile "tween" too old for Walt Disney but too young for Ken Russell. 

Paradoxically, while young people in contemporary films held little interest for me on the big screen, on the black and white console TV in our family’s living room, I was positively gaga over movies about teenagers from the ‘50s and early ‘60s. On Saturday afternoons local TV stations could be relied upon to supply a steady stream of ‘50s juvenile delinquent melodrama (The Violent Years - 1956); hot rod exploitation (Dragstrip Riot - 1956), rock & roll romance (Rock, Rock, Rock - 1956); jukebox musicals (Don’t Knock the Rock - 1956); low-budget monster movies (I Was a Teenage Frankenstein -1957), screwy sci-fi flicks (Teenagers from Outer Space - 1959); and Drive-in oddities (Teenage Caveman - 1958).

Kids Just Wanna Have Fun

These poor-relation follow-ups to Brando’s The Wild One (1953), Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and Poitier’s Blackboard Jungle may have been marketed to teens, but in favoring harmless generation gap clashes over social rebellion commentary, their narratives always hewed close to the middle-class status quo. Juvenile delinquents were never depicted as anti-heroes whose mistrust of authority was justified, rather, they were seen as atypical bad apples and stand-alone troublemakers. Their disobedience was often shown to be the pitiable product of broken homes or of having been raised without the proper advantages (aka, a suburban home with a white picket fence).

Moderne Family: Jeanne Tatum, Jody Fair, and Kirby Smith
bask in the Streamline furniture, starburst clocks, wall sconces, and enormous coffee tables

Known in our house as "juvies" (juvenile delinquent movies) or "black & white shoe pictures" (in reference to the bobbysoxer footwear-of-choice: saddle-shoes), the movies in this genre I most enjoyed were those distinguished by their non-existent budgets, prodigious use of bop-talk slang, and the then-vanguard preponderance of rock & roll music on the soundtrack. (Predictably, the vision of America presented in these movies was unrelentingly white, save for the occasional, controversial appearance of an African-American rock & roll music act).

What used to really fascinate me—especially given that, at the time, these movies were only about 10 or 13 years old—was their jarring “otherness.” In everything from hair, speech patterns, modes of dress, music, dances, and choice of leisure pastimes; these movies depicted a teenage world so alien to life as I knew it, it was like our TV set was receiving transmissions from another planet. Compared to the real-time preoccupations of the day (the Vietnam War, civil rights, lowering the voting age, free love, drugs, Women’s Lib, and religious exploration) the '50s restlessness brought about by the Bomb and the Cold War seemed positively quaint.

Attack of the Well-Behaved, Appropriately-Dressed, Party Crashers

While some of these films were sincere in their efforts to call attention to the delinquency crisis hitting the suburbs at the time, most were conceived as exploitation programmers pandering to the teen preoccupations of the day, and geared for quick turnover in the Drive-In market. The silliest, ergo, the most entertaining of this ilk were the programmers that played out like dry-runs for the yet-to-come Beach Party movies of the sixties. These films had nonsensical plots, an almost vaudeville approach to humor, stock teen characters (the bland hero, his loyal “girl,” the jokester, the bad kids/rivals), and the elders were always well-meaning allies, ineffectual authority figures, or comic buffoons. 

A particular favorite I made a point never to miss whenever it cropped up on TV was Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow; a goofy titled, likeably awful goulash of teen-movie tropes economically crammed into a brisk 65-minutes...which made it perfect for those 2-hour afternoon TV programs whose hosts served up jokey commentary between the countless commercials.

Top on my list of reasons why Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow rocks is that the only rebellious drag racing done in the entire film is by the women 

Jody Fair as Lois Cavendish 

Nancy Anderson as Annita (Nita)

The almost surreally silly Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow was promoted as a sequel (of sorts) to 1959’s more straightforward Hot Rod Gang, but newcomers to this film needn’t worry about not being able to pick up the thread. There isn’t one.

Remember that list of ‘50s teen flick genres I referenced earlier? Well, Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow somehow manages to be ALL of them at once. Yes, in a mere 65 minutes you get juvenile delinquent melodrama, hot rod exploitation, rock & roll romantic comedy, a rockabilly and girl-group pop jukebox musical of (all the better to promote American International Pictures’ newly-formed record label), a ghost/monster flick, and a Scooby Doo mystery, to boot.

Members of The Zenith Motor Club
Amelia (Sanita Pelkey), Dave (Henry McCann), Bonzo (Leon Tyler), and Rhoda (Elaine DuPont)

The Zenith Club is a group of suburban hot rod enthusiasts devoted to disaffirming the public perception of hotrodders as street-racing, authority-flouting, juvenile delinquents. Pledged to a strict code forbidding street racing of any kind, this clean-cut clique spends its time tinkering with engines and bop dancing in the adjacent soda shop. Journalist Tom Hendry (Russ Bender), writing a human interest article on teenagers called “This Restless Breed,” has been invited to tag along as the Zeniths do whatever it is they do. A plot contrivance opening the door for a lot of exposition and the reciting of more hot rod minutiae than any of us deserve.

Alleged hot-rodder and likely junior ROTC recruit Stan (Martin Braddock) helps superannuated cub reporter Tom (Russ Bender) understand that not all young people are as trouble-making (or talented or charismatic) as Marlon Brando in The Wild One 

The leader of The Zeniths is Stan (Martin Braddock), a wholesome, cardigan-wearing type characterized  by his level-headedness and never being seen doing anything remotely car-related. Other members include pint-sized brainiac Dave (Henry McCann) and his bookish, Amazonian gal-pal Amelia (Sanita Pelkey); annoying, comedy-relief cut-up Bonzo (Leon Tyler) and kewpie-eyed girlfriend Rhoda (Elaine DuPont); and real-life drag racing Hall of Famer Tommy Ivo (as himself...and perhaps wondering, like me, why he isn’t the leader of the club) and his mostly silent, ponytailed partner Sandra (Judy Howard). A welcome break from all this gender stasis (the women don’t really do anything in the club except stand around watching their boyfriends work on engines) is Lois Cavendish (Jody Fair).

Madonna prototype Sandra (Judy Howard) stands by as drag racing legend Tommy Ivo contributes some long-winded verisimilitude to the film by delivering a 60-second, documentary-level monologue about his narrow rear end and unblown gas engine.

Lois is the only female hotrodder and mechanic in the club, and, as she’s so easily goaded into “chicken run” drag races by Nita (Nancy Anderson), a snarly rival gang member, she’s also the film’s only rule-breaker (albeit, reluctant). Refreshingly independent-minded for a film of this sort, Lois has her interest in cars trivialized (“I can dig the male of the species, but the female hotrodder baffles me!”) and boyfriend Stan laments her not placing him first in her passions (“She prefers hot rods instead of hot romances”), yet she persists. Even when it comes to her parents.

"You're approaching womanhood...."
"I've got news for you...I've arrived!"

When The Zenith’s lose their clubhouse lease, elderly eccentric Anastasia Abernathy (Dorothy Neumann) kindly grants the kids use of her late grandfather’s deserted house in Dragstrip Hollow…provided the youngsters can rid the place of a skulking monster and spooky ghost. And it’s at this point—roughly, some three-quarters into the movie, mind you—that Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow finally decides it might be time to actually be about a ghost of Dragstrip Hollow. Good idea. Especially since up to now the movie’s mostly been a series of vaguely connected false leads and narrative fake-outs designed to quash dramatic conflict (or story momentum, for that matter) every time it rears its head.

Dorothy Neumann as Anastasia Abernathy - with Alphonso, her loquacious parrot.
Fans of The Andy Griffith Show might recognize Neumann as the wife of Otis, the town drunk 

Among the many introduced-only-to-be-abandoned plot points: the whole gang rivalry angle; Lois’ generation-gap clash with her parents; Tom’s forgotten magazine article; the chance that Lois’ involvement in hot-rodding could adversely affect her father’s real estate business; and boyfriend Stan’s concern that he comes second to Lois’ love of fast cars.

But that’s no reason to despair. Not when there’s so much time devoted to slumber parties, bop dances, lengthy musical interludes, a wisecracking parrot, the invention of the smart car, and a wrap-up so hasty you’ll think you nodded off and missed something.

That's B-Movie monster costume designer/creator Paul Blaisdell inside this outfit he originally made for The She-Creature (1956).  A Blaisdell-designed costume for Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) also makes an appearance in Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS MOVIE

If ever there was a movie to exemplify the principle of making a virtue of one’s flaws, that movie is Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow. Proof that a deficit of production values and a meandering screenplay is no match for an appealing cast and a rockabilly soundtrack. Revisiting this film after so many years, I was certain that personal nostalgia would play the most significant role in determining how I would respond. But imagine my surprise to discover that Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow—in all its nonsensical, unpretentious glory—still rocks! 

And I don’t mean just in a campy, Mystery Science Theater 3000 way, either (although it has that to spare). I don’t know what it is, but there’s something so inoffensively featherweight and ridiculous about the whole premise and execution of this film that getting caught up in its jaunty good nature proves rather effortless. I actually found myself laughing with the film as often as I was laughing at it.  

The best way to rid a haunted house of a ghost is to throw a rock & roll masquerade party

What once felt like an “otherness” in the film’s setting and characters, now feels recognizably old-fashioned. Like a mash-up of Scooby-Doo, The Munsters, Father Knows Best, American Bandstand, and those “Abbott and Costello Meet…” movies.

Although it sounds like faint praise, the cast of Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow wins me over with their likeability more than their talent, the latter ofttimes proving to be a downright obstacle in movies like this. The older players fare best, what with the younger ones at constant risk of being upstaged by a wisecracking parrot. Jody Fair makes for a pleasantly spunky leading lady, but whenever bespectacled, statuesque Sanita Pelkey appears in the scene, I can’t imagine anyone’s eyes being on anyone else.

A former Miss New York and onetime showgirl, Sanita Pelkey appeared on a
1958 episode of the Groucho Marx game show You Bet Your Life  (audio only)

DIG THAT CRAZY BEAT:

American International Pictures, an independent movie studio that would make a name for itself in the '60s and '70s (not a particularly good one) with their Beach Party movies and biker flicks, was one of the first to mine the lucrative boxoffice potential of teenagers. In 1959 they launched their own record label, and the songs from Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (most written by Beach Boys producer Nick Venet) were among the first to be pressed. I'm happy to say I have them all in my collection. Perhaps I should be mortified.

Rockabilly band "The Renegades" perform Geronimo and Charge! and Ghost Train

The girls of the Zenith Motor Club badly lip-sync to a song titled My Guy. The song was released
as a 45 single by a group calling themselves "Linda Leigh and the Treasure Tones"

Jimmie Maddin sings "Tongue Tied." Maddin was a singer/saxophonist and nightclub owner in LA. He was still performing at one of his clubs (The Capri Club in Glendale) a year before he died in 2006

GINCHY* GLOSSARY:                                                  

From a narrative standpoint, Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow is a bit of a hodgepodge. But its silly/funny dialogue and overemphatic slang is the ginchiest.   (*ginchy means cool)

“Put the cork, York.”    —Please be quiet

“He’s got static in his attic. Completely zonk!”    —He knows not whereof he speaks

“My dragon wagon’s laggin'”      —My automobile is in need of a tune-up

“It’s PM-ing, I’d better peel out”   —It's getting late, I'd best take my leave

“Put that thing down, Dad. Before you clobber your clavicle.”    —Don't overexcite yourself

“Two weeks on the slab? That’s a real buffalo.”  —Grounded? That's distressing news

“This gal’s got what it takes. If she’d only give it.”  —She's pretty. I wish she'd notice me 

“Somebody get this bag of bacteria lost.”   —I'm afraid we haven't been introduced 

“It’s not a chop, kitten. I purr you. Why, I’m not just makin’ sound waves. Like, if you weren’t jacketed, I’d move in.’Cause you’re a dap…I mean a real dap!”  

    —I'm being sincere, I like you. If you weren't already spoken for I'd ask you out, because I find you quite dapper

(A parent confronting two kids necking)

 “We thought we’d come out for a breath of fresh air”

“Where’d you think you’d find it? Down her throat?”

  

“I dreamed I was an 18-cylinder motor. It was wonderful...you should have seen my driveshaft!”

“That was grandmother Aphrodite!”

“How’d she die, trying to spell that name?”

BONUS MATERIAL:

Available in its entirety on YouTube

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2018

OPEN SECRETS: MOVIES AND THE ME TOO MOVEMENT

Had someone spent the better part of this year in a cave (an idea that grows increasingly appealing to me with each passing news day), only to just now become aware of the seismic social phenomenon that is the Me Too Movement; one could hardly fault them for assuming this newfound global discourse had been instigated by Hollywood as a means of addressing and drawing attention to the prevalence of sexual assault and harassment in the entertainment industry exclusively.

Indeed, as a sea of celebrated (largely white) faces comes to signify the frontlines of a movement that has, since an October 2017 tweet by actor Alyssa Milano, spawned a thousand hashtags and sparked a long-overdue cultural conversation, it’s easy to forget that the Me Too Movement was founded by African-American civil rights activist Tarana Burke as far back as 2006 as an “empowerment through empathy” program targeting women of color…traditionally the most underserved survivors of sexual violence.

The Color Purple (1985)

One of the few feature films to treat the sexual abuse of black women as a serious theme.

Historically, black women who speak out about rape, molestation, and sexual assault face resistance from all sides: accusations of race disloyalty if the perpetrator is a black male; said assault trivialized or disregarded if the perpetrator is a white male; silence or indifference from white females. 

When social-media frenzy—that unwieldy, modern equivalent of the scandal sheets of old—seized upon the band-aid-on-a-broken-leg karmic purge of the whole Harvey Weinstein scandal (offenses so unequivocal, males nationwide wide were granted license to condemn him free of having to bear either the weight of self-recognition or sting of complicity), defenders of the status quo were quick to whine about the  pendulum of consequence and accountability swinging too far. (This, after all of six months, mind you.) In the glare of spotlights and ancillary campaigns like #TimesUp and #NoMore, it looked for a while as though the essential tenets of Tarana Burke’s “me too. Movement” were in danger of submersion.  

Always a social movement about survivors (e.g., I see you and I understand) and less about naming and shaming, the focus of Burke’s Me Too movement encourages speaking aloud about that which gains its power from suppression, shame, and secrecy; recognizing the strength and value of those who survive traumas intended to instill feelings of guilt and worthlessness; and, most significantly, challenging the accepted perception that sexual assault and harassment are the isolated transgressions of a few bad apples, rather than a toxically pervasive by-product of socially-sanctioned misogyny and systemic sexism.

America is a fame-culture addicted country. So, if in the land of Celebrity Lives Matter it took our preoccupation with the problems of the privileged to give voice and visibility to what has long been an open-secret reality for millions of women nationwide; then it’s only fitting (if not downright ironic) that it should be via the industry that has made a fortune perpetuating and normalizing images of sexual abuse and violence towards women.

Marnie (1964)

Rape culture is when an esteemed director has to die before the public engages in a serious dialogue about an actress’ career-long disclosure of the sexual harassment she endured while in his employ. 

Alfred Hitchcock's behind-the-scenes harassment and obsession with Tippi Hedren
 lends Marnie's already distasteful rape scene an extra layer of ick.

For me, the single most surprising thing to come out of the whole #MeToo Movement are the reactions of shock, surprise, and incredulous outrage. All that convenient "Has this been happening under our very noses all this time?" self-absolution, instead of the more self-implicating—but arguably more accurate—realization that when it comes to acknowledging society's apathy towards the prevalence of sexual assault, our culture tends to adopt a position in line with a lyric from Stephen Sondheim's Company: "Think what you can keep ignoring...."

Movies have the potential to be an eloquent voice for the things we find most difficult to discuss or even speak aloud. Similarly, I can think of few art forms more influential than film when it makes up its mind to utilize its magic to help shine a widescreen, Technicolor spotlight on some dark aspect of humanity society likes to keep relegated to the shadows. But traditionally speaking, when it comes to the depiction and treatment of women, it can’t be said that movies have always been what you might call a ready ally.

The Lonely Lady (1983)

Hollywood rarely knows how to write a lead female character who is both sexual and sympathetic. Trapped by the narrow Madonna-whore social construct of womanhood, hack writers are often at a loss for how to feature as much nudity and sex as possible while still giving the audience a female lead they can root for/identify with. The irresponsible solution? Have her be the target of multiple sexual assaults. The Lonely Lady was marketed as a film with lots of sex and nudity, but in truth, there is very little sex in the film. What there’s plenty of is assault, coercion, battery, and rape.

Whatever brownie points The Lonely Lady earns for relevance (plot: women aren't taken seriously behind the camera in Hollywood) it loses due to its trivialization of sexual assault

If Movies Could Say #MeToo

So many of the films I cover for this blog are female-centric and were made during the era specific to when the Feminist Movement began to influence women’s roles both on and off screen. I'm intrigued by the possibility of exploring whether the attitudes in some of my favorites (and, in turn, my response to them) are dated, or, since many were once considered progressive, if they are in any way in tempo with the timbre of the times. Limiting my scope to films from my personal collection, my purpose in highlighting these movies is not just to illustrate how frequently rape, harassment, and sexual violence have figured in narratives and roles written for women over the years; but to examine the ways movies can reflect, shape, and possibly change our perceptions of behaviors and attitudes that have existed for too long without being challenged.

THE BORN LOSERS (1967)

As with so many horror films and westerns, the raison d’être of biker movies (essentially westerns on wheels) is the spectacle of assault on the female form. Not because women’s vulnerability to male violence is of any real import to the plot, it’s there simply to convey how bad the bad guys are. A staple of movies devoted to the wrongheaded notion that the banner heading of "action" always denotes the confluence of sex and violence. The Born Losers was written by the film’s star Elizabeth James, whose screenplay she decided--whether out of embarrassment (appropriate) or the belief that no one would see a biker flick written by a woman (misguided)--to credit under the pseudonym James Lloyd. I ascribe to Ms. James the refreshingly fearless and independent-minded heroine, and I thank her for providing personal fave Jane Russell with a colorful guest appearance. But in all other aspects this cycle melodrama (which introduced the "peace through asskicking" character, Billy Jack) is non-stop rape, female victimization, and by-the-numbers damsel in distress stuff.

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1967)

The “working girl” genre is long dead, but for a time there seemed to be a glut of films devoted to dramatizing the perils facing single women trying to make it in “a man’s world.” These films gave lip service to female independence, but always managed to make it clear that women were better off (safer) sticking closer to hearth and home. While the sincerity of the intentions of these films is up for debate, and their attitude often smacks of the sexist “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen” toxic male in the workplace ethic; at least these movies recognized the commonality of sexual assault in women’s shared experience. In Valley of the Dolls Sharon Tate is subjected to objectification and sexual coercion; In The Best of Everything (1959) Diane Baker is sexually harassed on the job; and in The Group (1966) Jessica Walter is battered and narrowly escapes date rape. 

MANHATTAN (1979)

No insult to anyone who loves this film, but as soon as Woody Allen says the line "I'm 42 and she's 17," Manhattan morphs into a horror movie. I adored this film once, and back in 1979 nothing about this May/way-past-December romance gave me the willies (beyond Allen's fundamental unattractiveness, of course). I look at it now and...I mean, even applying the blinkers-on standards of the time (it was released two years after the Polanski rape trial) the Allen/Hemingway thing still creeps me out. She's of age and so is he, but the legalities don't undercut the gross-out factor. Now, I suffer a Breakfast at Tiffany's response when I encounter it. Which is to say that much in the same way I wish for there to be some way to cut Mickey Rooney's Mr. Yunioshi out of that lovely film, I harbor a similarly unreasonable desire for there to exist somewhere a Mariel Hemingway-free cut of Manhattan.

UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE (1967)

There's probably not a woman alive who can't relate, at least in part, to this image of Sandy Dennis being harassed by guys on a sidewalk. I'm forever baffled when I hear men say that women should feel complimented by wolf whistles and catcalls. That is, until I recognize the disingenuousness of such sentiments. Men know precisely what they are doing. They know the entitlement, they know the power, and they know they are exerting a subtle form of dominance. It's a put-down and sign of mastery; a signal that the right to speak out about a woman's body matters more than that woman's right to say she doesn't want to be subjected to it.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK (1977)

Written as a "meet cute" introduction for the two leads of Martin Scorsese's uneven musical romantic drama, this opening scene comprised of Robert De Niro's persistent pursuit of Liza Minnelli at a V-Day function has always felt more than a little creepy and threatening. Back in 1977 I chalked it up to the Travis Bickle effect, but upon revisiting the film recently, I have to say the toxic masculinity, sexual harassment vibe is off the chart. De Niro comes off as stalker material and Minnelli looks as though she wished pepper spray had been invented in 1945.

TO DIE FOR (1995)

In this satirical black comedy loosely based on a real-life incident, Nicole Kidman plays a cunning (albeit, not very bright) sociopath who dreams of a career as a news anchor. While Kidman's character is set up to be a parodistic amalgam of the worst of our fame-at-any-price culture, the way men respond to her character's professional ambitions offers a piercing (perhaps unintentional) commentary on how some men regard women in the professional sector. It says a lot when one realizes the level of professional condescension, objectification, harassment, and disregard Kidman's grossly unqualified character is met with would be precisely the same were she Diane Sawyer or Robin Roberts. America got a poisonous taste of this in our last election.

LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR (1977)

The jury is still out as to whether Richard Brooks' adaptation of Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a moralizing cautionary tale or a bracing expose of our culture's sexual hypocrisy (I vote for the latter). More disturbing than this film's violent denouement are the comments I read on IMDB and other online sources where the biggest takeaway some men (and a distressing number of women) have regarding the tragedy that made this movie such a shocker, is that Diane Keaton's character really shouldn't have laughed at Tom Berenger's inability to perform in bed. Yes, the fragility of the masculine ego is such an acknowledged no trespass zone that people actually think death is a foreseeable consequence of wounding it. 

LIPSTICK (1976)

The sensitive, thought-provoking, well-intentioned film about the subject of rape and its far-reaching psychological, emotional, judicial, and social aftermath has yet to be made. Back in 1976 this glossy pseudo-feminist Death Wish exploitation film pawned itself off as the genuine article by introducing many good talking points in its courtroom scenes. Especially as pertaining to the (continued) assertion that a woman can "provoke" her own sexual assault due to what she wears or how she looks. But by lingering over the unsavory particulars of the act of rape and giving short shrift to the characters and their motivations, Lipstick showed its true hand: it was simply interested is exploiting violent physical assault for sensation.

SOMETHING WILD (1961)

On the opposite end of the Lipstick spectrum is this rarely seen Carroll Baker arthouse entry that stands as one of the more complex and contemplative studies of a woman dealing with the emotional and psychological trauma of rape. Unfortunately, the brilliant character-study feel of the film's first half feels curiously at odds with the compassionate but arguably problematic second half. Recommenced for its focus on the survivor aspects of rape, and not dwelling upon nor exploiting the violence of the act itself.

SMOOTH TALK (1985)

The tendency for movies to sensationalize sexual assault and rape is that when the perpetrators are depicted as drooling monsters (Showgirls), it supports men not being able to recognize their own inappropriate or abusive behavior in these outsize portrayals. Similarly, when rape is only shown in terms of extreme violence and brutality (Blue Velvet), it reinforces a tendency in both sexes to only recognize and accept allegations of rape in terms of how brutal the assault and how much of a struggle the victim puts up. Smooth Talk, in which a sexual predator rapes a teenage girl by means of subtle threats and terrifying coercion, raises very real issues concerning how many date rapes and incidents of sexual assault occur with no physical violence. What can't be ignored is that in many instances assault can arise out of the threat of violence, the potential for violence, or merely the verbal and psychological assertion of power. In these instances, the perpetrator relies on society's blurred lines to ensure a victim's silence.

LOLITA (1962)

Stanley Kubrick was a genius. Vladimir Nabokov's novel is brilliant. James Mason's performance is his finest screen work. And I adore Shelly Winters in this. All that being said, my problem with Lolita is that it appears as though no one involved in the making of the film was the least bit concerned with the single aspect of the plot that strikes me as being so profoundly sad and scary. Lolita, a teenager, following the death of her mother, is bound to the possessive, predatory, obsessive molester her mother married. She has no one else. And like a captor, Humbert likes it that way. Add to this the fact that her only means of escape (as presented) is into the arms of another creepy pedophile (Clare Quilty) and you've got the makings of a tragedy, not a dark satire. Sure, the film is told from Humbert's twisted perspective, but for the film to ask the viewer not to concern themselves too unduly with what this girl is feeling or going trough is, for me, asking a bit much.

THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE (1992)

In this suspense thriller, Annabella Sciorra (a real-life Harvey Weinstein assault victim/accuser) plays a woman who is sexually molested by her gynecologist. The filing of her complaint spearheads the film's not-always-plausible nanny-takes-revenge plot and brings an end to this aspect of the story, but the strength of the sequence is that it offers a realistic, non-sensationalized look at the kind of assault that can happen to any woman. That it's also the kind of assault that leads so many women to question their own judgement makes it a brief but powerful entreaty for women to trust their instincts and listen to their bodies.

ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE (1974)

In closing, a look at this marvelous moment courtesy of Ellen Burstyn. A reminder that it's never too late to call 'em out on their bullshit.

This Is Just The Beginning

9 to 5 (1980)
A shout-out to my favorite workplace comedy. A film that humorously tackled sexism, workplace misconduct, the glass ceiling, and equal pay for women. There's no denying a lot has changed since this film came out, just as it's painfully clear there's a lot more work that needs to be done. But I've a feeling the recent groundswell of grassroots social activism is just the beginning of a wave of change. Here's hoping movies stay in step with the times and (better still) occasionally lead the way

"Silence in the face of injustice is complicity with the oppressor" - Ginette Sagan

There's so much backlash talk these days about the Me Too Movement fostering a "victim" mentality (something said at one time or another about all civil and human rights movements). But the reality has always been that speaking one's truth aloud, no matter the risk, odds, or assurance of outcome, is an act of triumph, the sign of a survivor, and profoundly heroic. me too. #MeToo

BONUS MATERIAL

A short film about civil rights activist and Me Too founder Tarana Burke 

(click on link to view)

SHE'S REVOLUTIONARY (2018)

THAT'S HARASSMENT (2018)

Filmmaker Sigal Avin and actor David Schwimmer produced a powerful series of five short films designed to demystify sexual misconduct. (click on link to view)

In this splendid New Yorker article by Molly Ringwald, the former Brat Pack member revisits her films The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles in the age of #MeToo 

Copyright © Ken Anderson

ORDINARY PEOPLE 1980

"Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."  - Tolstoy

Ordinary People won the 1981 Best Picture Oscar against Raging Bull, The Elephant Man, Tess, and Coal Miner's Daughter. While hindsight and time have confirmed my personal opinion that Martin Scorsese’s searing and ambitious Raging Bull was the more deserving prize recipient that year, I must assert that in saying this, I am in no way diminishing or discounting the brilliance that is Ordinary People. It's an easy film to dramatically discredit due to its essentially conventional structure and familiar domestic themes. And it's an easy film to creatively overlook because it lacks both the cinematic bravura and operatic scope of Scorsese’s masterpiece. But, when leaving these comparisons aside, director Robert Redford's Ordinary People has always struck me as one of the most emotionally eloquent and evocative domestic dramas I've ever seen.

The passion of Scorsese's beautifully rendered biographical character study may move me aesthetically, and I'm aware that part of me responds most strongly to it (as I do with Stanley Kubrick's films) on a largely cerebral level--I'm just so impressed with its filmmaking craft. But to this day, of all the movies nominated that year, I still find Ordinary People to be the most deeply affecting of the lot. Its poignance speaks to me in ways that perhaps have little to do with art, but everything to do with its compassionate point of view and my enduring fondness for motion pictures that explore the human condition.

As the years go by, I come to appreciate Ordinary People’s simple, straightforward approach more and more, for its look feels less like the absence of style in a first-time director than a deliberate attempt on Redford’s part to use the film's crisp, conventional look as a commentary on the role conformity and the illusion of appearances play in the world these people inhabit. A means of training the focus on what’s most important to the story: repression and the inability of its characters to understand and express feelings that fall beyond the scope of coping mechanisms of structure, order, and self-control.

Mary Tyler Moore as Beth Jarrett

Donald Sutherland as Calvin Jarrett

Timothy Hutton as Conrad Jarrett

Judd Hirsch as Dr. Tyrone C. Berger

Elizabeth McGovern as Jeannine Pratt

Dinah Manoff as Karen Alrich

Ordinary People tells the story of the Jarretts, an upper-middle-class family living in the Chicago suburb of Lake Forest, an affluent neighborhood of spacious homes, manicured lawns, and people skilled in the art of emotional repression. Fittingly, the film opens with a montage of tranquil, postcard-perfect images of this tony residential community, for in this beige-colored, WASP enclave, appearances seem to do all the talking. Most vociferously, these meticulously kept-up appearances speak of status and wealth, but they're also an avowal of the belief that if everything looks right, it must then certainly be right.
From order comes security, and security must, therefore, bring happiness. The unexpected is kept at bay. Everyone is safe. Lives are happy. All is as it should be, and there is no mess—except for in the Jarrett household, where, bit by bit, their lives are slowly coming apart.

Keeping Up Appearances

Looking at them from the outside, one would assume the Jarretts haven’t a problem in the world. Genial, easygoing Calvin is a successful tax attorney; elegant, poised Beth, a mother and housewife, is an avid golfer and paragon of perfectionism; and 17-year-old Conrad…he’s just been released from a mental hospital after having tried to kill himself.

You see, Buck Jarrett, eldest son, star athlete, and all-around Golden Boy, drowned in a boating accident a little over a year ago, and the emotional fallout of the tragedy (or more precisely, the lack of it) has left a huge fissure in the Jarrett’s façade of have-it-all normalcy.
The loss of the older brother he looked up to causes Conrad to suffer a nervous breakdown born of survivor's guilt and from the feeling that, in the eyes of his parents, he'll never measure up enough to compensate for the void. Beth, who one senses blames Conrad for his brother’s death, has virtually shut him out of her life. Unable to display affection and withholding approval, she thinks that Conrad’s suicide attempt was a deliberate act of revenge directed at her (the deed left the image-conscious Beth having to weather both the stigma of having an institutionalized son and the humiliation of others knowing that all is far from orderly in the Jarrett household).

Calvin, stuck in the role of conciliator, drinks a bit too much and tends to turn a blind eye to what he perhaps knows/fears to be true between Beth and Conrad. In his earnest efforts to make everything nice, he too, lives in a state of denial about his feelings.

Recovering from shock therapy, left behind a grade for his months-long stay at a mental hospital,
Conrad feels the pressure of others wanting things to return to "normal" as quickly as possible

In chronicling Conrad’s journey toward forgiveness (himself and his mother) Ordinary People’s look at the dysfunction within a by-all-appearances functional family covers little of what I’d call new ground. Certainly not after all those ’60 post-Graduate films eviscerating the middle class for their false values, the wave of Vietnam-era ‘70s films and TV movies devoted to cultural soul-searching, or the 1973 PBS documentary An American Family (television's first reality show), which regaled us with the spectacle of the disintegration of a quintessential WASP family from the comfort of our living rooms.

But where Robert Redford succeeds in making Ordinary People an uncommonly perceptive look at a familiar topic is how his direction displays an insider's insight into this world and the people who inhabit it. There are none of the cliché, easy-target jibes at the upper-middle-class typical of the "domestic disintegration" genre. In its place is an intimate familiarity with the WASP rituals of suppression (few interactions occur outside of the formalized: meals, cocktail parties, golf games, and "keeping busy" are the cure-all panacea), empathy for the adult characters, and compassion for the adolescents.

The "French Toast scene" is one of my favorites. It features a father who tries too hard, a son who feels too much, and a mother who expresses her feelings in the only way she knows how: through the dutiful carrying out of household rituals. The tension is as thick as maple syrup.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

Ordinary People was a critical and commercial success upon release, its few detractors mostly citing it as perhaps a little too ordinary in its approach for its own good. A solemn, pedigreed, adult drama about important issues, Ordinary People is the kind of film studios once touted as a “prestige picture,” and critics would label “Oscar bait” (Indeed, it was nominated for six Oscars, winning four: Picture, Director, Supporting Actor, and Adapted Screenplay.)

Almost too refined and tasteful for the messiness of its subject matter, Ordinary People’s family-in-crisis themes, relaxed, naturalistic performances, and distinct lack of showy, cinematic tricks (a welcome rarity from a first-time director) still have many feeling that Redford’s film is little more than a superior movie-of-the-week. 

But to me, what Ordinary People lacks in visual distinction (not entirely fair, John Bailey’s cinematography, evoking the chill and melancholy beauty of autumn in the Midwest, is remarkably expressive), it makes up for in keeping the viewer emotionally rapt in the Jarretts' domestic free-fall. Ordinary People’s greatest strength has always been its characters, the tenuous structure of their relationships, and the depth of emotional authenticity the film’s remarkable cast brings to Alvin Sargent’s splendid screenplay (from Judith Guest’s 1976 novel).

The entire cast of Ordinary People is extraordinary, but Mary Tyler Moore wasn't fucking around. She brings it like gangbusters in her portrayal of Beth, inhabiting the character in a way that leaves you feeling her role in the film is larger than it actually is. Every one of her scenes is virtuoso, but here are my favorites:

"Give her the goddamn camera!"
Never has Mary Tyler Moore's ready smile been used to better knots-in-the-stomach effect

"Mothers don't hate their sons!"
After so much politeness, Moore & Sutherland finally squaring off  is electrifying

A dog named Pippin
This is an absolutely brilliantly played and written scene (watch Moore's shift in expressions). It's like a door being cracked open, only to be slammed shut. Two people trying to connect and not being able to. It breaks my heart every time.

The Hug
On a scale of emotional power, this reverberated through the theater like the chest-busting scene in Alien. I swear, the entire theater seemed to gasp and break into LOUD sobs all at once

PERFORMANCES
Dating back to the first time I ever saw Rebel Without a Cause on TV, I've seldom liked how teenagers have been written or portrayed on screen (except in low-budget '50s and '60s rock & roll musicals). They always seem to have a little too much autonomy, and the graceful, perfect actors playing them too often look like they're play-acting at youthful gawkiness and insecurity. Timothy Hutton turns in an exceptional performance simply by giving the impression he's not "playing" at anything...he's being. He comes across as genuine and age-appropriately hamstrung by his emotional confusion, his character's anguish made all the more heartbreaking because he also comes across as such a sweet, sensitive kid.

Hutton works a kind of miracle with Conrad, granting us a portrait of a tortured youth that manages to sidestep the usual problematic “troubled teen” clichés that so often come across as self-pitying and self-indulgent. Hutton was just 19 at the time, yet there’s nothing callow in how perceptively he conveys the feelings of a young man grappling with grief and self-recrimination. Given that this is the young actor's first major film role (for which he won an Oscar in the bargain), the intensity of feeling Hutton brings to his character is perhaps too-easily attributed to his having lost his real-life father just four months prior to filming (actor Jim Hutton succumbed to liver cancer at age 45); but I think it's just a case of a very talented actor meeting with the perfect role.

Adam Baldwin, Hutton, Carl DiTomasso, Fredric Lehne

As the '80s ushered in the era of the insufferable teenager—interchangeable slasher victims or indistinguishable coming-of-age horndogs—Ordinary People's realistic adolescents gently broke from tradition. Frederic Lehne plays a high school jock actually capable of showing compassion; Dinah Manoff, as Conrad's friend from the mental hospital, struggles to keep depression at bay through strained positivity; and most appealingly of all, Elizabeth McGovern (also making her film debut) as a classmate with whom Conrad shares a mutual crush.  McGovern, who has the quirky, natural charm of a young Paula Prentiss (a frequent Jim Hutton co-star), manages to rescue her character, through sheer force of originality, from being a plot-functional "dream girl" who exists solely to guide Conrad back into the world of feelings.

The charming naturalness of Hutton and McGovern adds poignance to their scenes

Both Redford and Moore have stated that the character of Beth and her inability to display affection reminded them of the non-relationship each had with their respective emotionally-remote, perfectionist fathers. I grew up at a time when, via TV shows like Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver, the patriarchal ideal defined the perfect family. That’s why Ordinary People’s fence-straddling, somewhat ineffectual, but well-intentioned Calvin Jarrett came as such a welcome surprise to me; at last: a divergence from the all-knowing authoritarian father figure of pop-culture propaganda.

Taking on the kind of peace-keeping, empathetic role typically afforded the long-suffering wife in these sorts of domestic dramas, Donald Sutherland—a personal favorite and the only major cast member to fail to receive an Oscar nod—gives an understated performance (Redford initially wanted him for the psychiatrist) whose nuances are all too easy to overlook. An actor most eloquent in his silences (Sutherland’s eyes tend to be more expressive than his face) is at a distinct disadvantage in a film full of so many showier performances; but Calvin’s restrained gentleness has the much-needed effect of humanizing Beth (some part of her must have appreciated his vulnerability) and of making Conrad’s estrangement less torturous, for it's clear he has at least one person in the household in his corner.

Had the Canadian Donald Sutherland been cast in the role of psychiatrist as Redford originally envisioned, critics would have lost the opportunity to project culturally stereotypical significance to Oscar-nominee Judd Hirsch's Jewishness; aka the trope about the "expressive" ethnic character helping the uptight white character to open up. 

“Beth was the character he [Redford] most cared about, and he wanted her to be portrayed with sensitivity. It was she who drew him to the project”  - Mary Tyler Moore

What drew me to Ordinary People was Mary Tyler Moore. I was sitting in a movie theater sometime during the summer of 1980 when I saw the trailer for Ordinary People for the first time. If you’ve never seen it, it’s one of those artfully modulated 2½ minute gems that builds in intensity until the fade-out has everyone in the theater murmuring in excitement. Like most everybody else in America at the time, I was still in the throes of Mary Richards withdrawal. The Mary Tyler Moore Show had ended in 1977, but Moore had been a consistent, cheery staple of television since The Dick Van Dyke Show premiered in 1961, so, even with reruns to salve the pain, by 1980 it still wasn’t easy living in a world without Mary.

I had no advance awareness of Ordinary People, so when Mary Tyler Moore appeared in the trailer behaving in a very un-Mary-like manner, I (and many others in the theater) let out an audible gasp. By the time the trailer was over I was aware of having been gripped by the same excitement I felt when back in 1974 I first read Ann-Margret was to appear in a Ken Russell film (Tommy); or in 1979, when the news came out about Olivia Newton-John, the squeaky-clean queen of soft rock, collaborating with British rockers Electric Light Orchestra on a little ditty called Xanadu. The potential for something unpredictably brilliant is always linked to a star going counter to their image and being cast against-type; so, when Ordinary People opened on Friday, September 19th, I happily stood in line to see it. I wasn’t disappointed. 

Ordinary People is unique in its depiction of a mother as a complex, conflicted individual of depth who, inconsistent with the maternal instinct myth, refuses (is unable?) to assume the traditional familial role of nurturer and healer.

Giving everyone involved in this film their due and not taking a single thing away from a single performance, it nevertheless remains my emphatic assertion that whatever heights Ordinary People soars to—as either motion picture or human drama—are reached on the wings of Mary Tyler Moore’s performance. She’s better than good here. Her performance emanates from a place of truth that serves as a tether wrenching Ordinary People back to reality every time it appears to veer into soap opera or Lifetime movie territory. I find her to be absolutely astounding.

And not for one moment do I pretend to dissociate my reaction to the character of Beth from my personal response to Moore in the role. It’s precisely my inability to fully wrest my awareness of Moore’s endurably likable TV persona from Beth’s rigidity that gives the performance its power. The incongruity of Moore’s quick-to-smile façade masking such groundswells of anger and stony reserve produces in me the exact reaction I imagine Beth’s country club friends would have were they ever catch a glimpse of what lies behind her perfect life of order. 

Everyone from Ann-Margret to Lee Remick was considered
 for the role Moore called "The Holy Grail of my career."

Although it’s heartbreaking to see the degree to which Beth’s steely reserve and need to keep up appearances hurts her family, Moore makes Beth’s defiant defense of her own fiercely guarded vulnerability a thing of icy beauty. You can see the pain, you can see the inner struggle, you can even see what she is most fearful of having to confront by letting down her guard (her sense of being a failure at something that seems very, very important to her--achieving perfection); but just as clearly you can see that she can’t help herself. Like everyone else, she too, is a victim of grief, her coping mechanisms as imprinted on her character as her name on a Marshall Field’s credit card.

Much in the manner that The Graduate's Mrs. Robinson is set up to be that story's villain, yet emerges its most sympathetic character; Beth, in the hands of Mary Tyler Moore, while never quite sympathetic, is so powerless, yet so resolute and repressed, she becomes a tragic figure.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

In these days of manufactured social media self-presentation, Photoshop perfectionism, and smartphone photo filters that turn their subjects into pore-free mannequins, a movie about the folly of keeping up appearances and the impossible pursuit of flawless “perfection” could perhaps not be more relevant.

And although Ordinary People is one of the whitest movies ever made, I’ve always been able to identify with it because the image-conscious middle-class world it dramatizes is not at all different from my own childhood growing up as one of the few Black families in an all-white neighborhood.

Everything in its Place

In the assimilationist household I grew up in, upward mobility meant the strict adherence to respectability politics. Under scrutiny whether we were shopping, playing outside, or just emptying the garbage, our family had to be a model of everything white America didn’t expect or want us to be. Black excellence (via perfectionism and achievement) was present in everything from how we kept up our house to how we dressed for school. Although we were a household of five (two older sisters had already married and moved out) and under a great deal of social pressure, we rarely spoke of these matters to one another because, by necessity, the needs and problems of the individual were sublimated to the goals of the family in particular, civil rights and the advancement of all of black America in general.
And let's not forget that during all this, I, as the only boy in the family and gay to boot, instinctively lapsed into "The Best Little Boy in the World" mode; neat, well-mannered, drug-free, straight-A student...all so that I'd never give my parents a moment's worry, ensuring that the pesky little topic of "gay" would never come up. 

No wonder I so identified with all that guilt Conrad carried around!

Were it not for my mother going through EST training in the early ‘70s (after which, talking about EVERYTHING became the household standard, resulting in even my conservative dad becoming alarmingly liberal), I think we could have wound up like the Jarretts.

One of the themes of Ordinary People is that not all breaks are clean, and not everything can be put back together again. But one of life's gifts granted to us as people is that we have this amazing capacity to endure and move on. Like the Edna St. Vincent Millay sonnet that opens Judith Guest's novel reminds us:

What a shining animal is man,

Who knows, when pain subsides, that is not that

For worse than that must follow yet can write

Music, can laugh, play tennis, even plan. 

BONUS MATERIAL

The cast of Ordinary People reunited for Vanity Fair in 2011. Photo by Mark Seliger

Ordinary People theatrical trailer

click to enlarge

Ordinary People was released Friday, September 26, 1980 at the Bruin Theater in Westwood, CA

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2018